Quality Of Life Of Patients With Low Vision Attending Korle-Bu And Eastern Regional Hospitals

ABSTRACT According to the World Health Organization report in 2012, 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Of these people, 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision. Ninety percent of these visually impaired live in developing countries. In Ghana the prevalence is reported to be 2%. Visual impairment is reported to cause a limitation in performing usual duties of the individual. Visual impairment hampers normal activities such as eating, writing, dressing, travelling from place to place and interacting with others. Although low vision caused by some disease complications like glaucoma and cataract can be avoided, insufficient education and unavailability of low vision services in all health facilities lead to long waiting periods resulting in complications. The purpose of the study was to describe the causes of low vision, to document the intervention devices given to low vision patients and to assess the quality of life of low vision patients. A cross sectional study assessed the quality of life of low vision patients attending Korle Bu and Eastern regional Hospitals. The 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaires (NEI VFQ-25) was administered using telephone interviews to 101 patients who visited the two clinics within the previous one to two years. The independent variables the study measured were age, occupation, monthly income, marital status, level of education and duration of vision loss. The causes of low vision were mainly posterior segment diseases with glaucoma being the major cause (23%). Most low vision patients received interventions such as telescopes and magnifiers which assisted them in reading and distance spotting and spectacles were for mobility. iv The NEI VFQ-25 subscale scores with the greatest deficit were near activities (mean score 46.9), distance activities (mean score 45.62), mental health (mean score 43.01), Role difficulty (mean score 40.97), dependency (mean score 44.97) and peripheral vision (mean score 47.03). The NEI-VFQ demonstrated that low vision patients perceive marked impairment of functional status and quality of life.